JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Doma wants consultation with business community

by

1394 days ago
20210524
Downtown Owners and Merchants Association president Gregory Aboud.

Downtown Owners and Merchants Association president Gregory Aboud.

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­es are con­tin­u­ing to take a fi­nan­cial hit as COVID-19 in­fec­tions and deaths con­tin­ue to climb.

So said the pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma) Gre­go­ry Aboud, who yes­ter­day again called on the Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss so­lu­tions and strate­gies with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty as it re­lates to the man­age­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Aboud ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that the Gov­ern­ment had failed to con­sult with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“There have been ze­ro con­sul­ta­tions. No­body is in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing our point of view. No one is in­ter­est­ed in dis­cussing strate­gies. No one is in­ter­est­ed in find­ing so­lu­tions that in­clude the con­tri­bu­tion of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in try­ing to lib­er­ate this coun­try from the COVID pan­dem­ic,” Aboud said.

But when asked who from the Gov­ern­ment had re­buffed them, Aboud ad­mit­ted that Do­ma had nev­er reached out to the Gov­ern­ment be­cause it did not feel it was Do­ma’s place to do so.

“I don’t know why you think it’s our du­ty to make an ap­proach. I would imag­ine that in nor­mal cir­cum­stances who­ev­er has his hand on the wheel would be the one in­ter­est­ed to con­sult and it wouldn’t be us pes­ter­ing any­body to be con­sult­ed,” Aboud said.

He added, “We ap­pre­ci­ate the dif­fi­cul­ty that the Gov­ern­ment faces and the job they did to guide the coun­try through per­ilous times. We don’t en­vy the job. But we al­so know that two heads are bet­ter than one.”

Say­ing the COVID cri­sis was deep, Aboud said many re­tail op­er­a­tors no longer had the fi­nances they had dur­ing the last lock­down.

He said de­fer­rals on loans did not mean loan for­give­ness, not­ing that a huge sub-sec­tor of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had rents to pay. With no in­come flow­ing in be­cause of the lock­down, Aboud said many busi­ness op­er­a­tors were find­ing them­selves in fur­ther debt.

Liken­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as a slave mas­ter that had the en­tire coun­try en­slaved with re­stric­tions, Aboud said it was time for harsh­er mea­sures to be tak­en in the short-term so that the lock­down will not con­tin­ue in the long-term.

“We are sug­gest­ing more ear­ly dras­tic mea­sures be tak­en so the pro­longed na­ture of these arrange­ments can be cir­cum­vent­ed and we will not have the dif­fi­cul­ty of a long pe­ri­od of re­stric­tion. We want to take med­i­cine ear­ly in a se­vere dose, rather than to take it in small­er amounts and have the econ­o­my locked down for too long,” he said.

He al­so used Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and St Lu­cia as ex­am­ples of how the pan­dem­ic should be han­dled. At every step the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in those com­mu­ni­ties was con­sult­ed, he added.

Aboud fur­ther said, “These coun­tries took swift harsh ac­tion and es­caped from the se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion. They have re­opened the economies. They have an ad­di­tion­al fea­ture where the bor­ders are opened to al­low those who want to go away and if they be­come vac­ci­nat­ed with both vac­cines, then that vac­cine pass­port be­comes their im­me­di­ate point of ex­emp­tion to come back to their coun­try.” 

He not­ed that if Gov­ern­ment does this, it will re­duce its na­tion­al bur­den for vac­ci­na­tions. Aboud al­so said all the coun­tries that emerged suc­cess­ful in the han­dling of the pan­dem­ic had con­sult­ed with the labour and busi­ness sec­tors.

He re­it­er­at­ed that busi­ness­es were un­der im­mense pres­sure and felt dis­con­nect­ed from the poli­cies that were be­ing rolled out by the Gov­ern­ment.   

Govt to meet busi­ness bod­ies to­mor­row

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ap­point­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to host a meet­ing with some of his Gov­ern­ment col­league and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions to dis­cuss COVID-19-re­lat­ed busi­ness con­cerns.

The Gov­ern­ment made the an­nounce­ment in a re­lease yes­ter­day, say­ing the meet­ing is card­ed to take place vir­tu­al­ly to­mor­row from 10 am.

The Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters who will be in at­ten­dance are Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan, Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell, and Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

The fol­low­ing en­ti­ties have been in­vit­ed to at­tend: T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce; T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce – To­ba­go Di­vi­sion; T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion; The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce T&T; Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers; Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chant As­so­ci­a­tion and Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

The Gov­ern­ment said it looks for­ward to the con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to col­lec­tive­ly com­bat the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic with a view to­ward eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery and growth.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored